[rockrr]

Tariffs

Good. Let’s talk about tariffs. First of all the Morill Tariff was largely a matter of concern after the fact because the southerners in congress had largely already emotionally checked out. They weren’t participating in the give~and~take of congressional politics. Although it passed the house it didn’t pass the senate until they had abandoned Congress and begun their secessions.

But the larger issue of tariffs was due to the way the south insisted on doing business. And that way of doing business revolved around the use of slave labor.

In the 18th and into the mid-19th century the nation raised revenues two ways - through sales of public lands and through tariffs. The Tariff of 1857 had cut the tariff rate to (I believe) 17% which was too low to generate the amount of revenue necessary to pay our bills. The Morrill Tariff was supposed to remedy that. Unfortunately it went too far in the other direction.

It’s affect was greater on the south than it was on the north because southerners imported more goods than northerners. Southerners imported more goods because they built their economy around the cash crops of cotton, rice, and tobacco instead of building a more supporting infrastructure. It was their choice - and with it came the consequences.

Ironically, all the things that southerners complained about the north imposing upon them when they were part of the union they imposed upon themselves immediately after cutting and running. See: http://www.docsouth.unc.edu/imls/tariff/tariff.html

[quadrant]

I agree. The Morrill Tariff was of great (and powerful) concern in the South. If memory serves, the tariff was set a 47%, of the value of the imported goods. A tariff of this amount amounts to little more than a total exclusion of goods entering a country.
The Morrill Tariff was extremely popular in the North and the Midwest, for obvious reasons; in fact, it was so popular that Lincoln might readily (and willingly compromise on the issue of slavery itself, as opposed to the expansion of slavery) but could never compromise on the tariff.
Personally, the leaders of the South were extremely foolish to leave the Union, for as Lincoln noted only the federal government could guarantee the existence of slavery. And tariffs can and frequently are revised; and while the Morrill Tariff might be a burden, the South (if it stayed in the Union) had a very powerful hand to play. Essentially, the South acted as did the Central Powers before WWI - it abandoned politics and negotiation for demands and confrontation. And the South came through its own folly to the same ends as did the Central Powers.